Kilimanjaro: A Fable of Utopia Read online

  “You’re an historian,” he replied. “You’ve come here at Mawenzi’s request, to argue his case. You’re going to tell me that this has been the Maasai’s ritual passage to manhood for millennia, and that I’m shaming him by not permitting it.”

  “Do you care for him?” I asked.

  “I love him as if he were my own blood son,” said Samuel.

  “Then why are you denying him his passage to adulthood?”

  “It’s a brutal, barbaric custom!” snapped Samuel.

  “Yet you yourself were circumcised,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, I was.”

  “And it did you no harm.”

  “None.”

  “Then why—?”

  He seemed to consider his answer for a long moment. Then he stopped walking and turned to me. “Mawenzi’s mother is not my first wife,” he said. “My first wife died—but before she died, I had a son. He was very much like Mawenzi: bold, courageous, intelligent. And like Mawenzi, he took great pride in being a Maasai and in honoring our traditions.”

  “Including circumcision?” I asked.

  “Including circumcision,” said Samuel.

  “He should be a young man now,” I said, wondering where this was leading. “Does he live on Kilimanjaro?”

  “He’s dead,” said Samuel, and I could see the emotional pain in his face. “He died from an infection caused by the circumcision ceremony. It was on that day that I rid myself of all names except Samuel, I cast aside my red blanket, I began to grow my hair, and I swore that no child of mine would ever be circumcised again.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “It is a brutal custom,” he continued. “We have hospitals that insist on sterile instruments, on disposable gloves for surgeons and nurses, on antiseptic cleansers for everything within the building. And yet when I was circumcised I stood knee-deep in a polluted stream, and was cut by a knife that had cut every member of my circumcision group, that still bore their blood. I knew that no Maasai is supposed to show pain, so I stood there like a statue, despite the agony I felt, unaware of the possible effects of the ceremony. I was proud of myself, and years later I was equally proud to have my son undergo the same ritual. When he became ill I took him to the laiboni, and only when the laiboni could not cure him did I take him to the hospital in the city, where they told me they could not save him, that we had waited too long. On that day I discarded my red blanket, threw away my spear, and allowed my hair to grow long again.” A look of fierce defiance spread across his features. “I will not lose another son to this madness!”

  “I see,” I said. The laiboni is the witch doctor.

  “Is that so cruel?” he demanded.

  “It’s not cruel at all,” I said. “But it can have cruel consequences. Mawenzi will not be allowed to take a wife, or to start his own manyatta.”

  “Only if he remains out here,” he said, indicating the savannah with a sweeping gesture. “This won’t hamper him in the city.”

  “But he wants to live a traditional life as a pastoralist,” I pointed out, “and this will be denied him.”

  “If what happened to my son happens to him, all life will be denied him,” replied Samuel firmly.

  “There must be a compromise,” I said.

  “There’s no solution that will please both sides,” said Samuel.

  “That’s possible,” I said. “But I promised Mawenzi I would try, and I’m going to keep my word to him.”

  He walked off to tend to his cattle, and I remained where I was, analyzing the situation. It did indeed seem insoluble, because each side had a strong moral argument: Samuel did not want Mawenzi endangered, which was reasonable and displayed a father’s love and concern; and Mawenzi wanted his birthright, his passage to adulthood, which was equally reasonable.

  Slowly it dawned on me that if the problem were to be considered in that light, it would require an ethicist to solve it, because it was clearly an ethical dilemma.

  But I am not an ethicist. I am an historian, and I knew that if I were to find a satisfactory solution, it would be because I used my special knowledge. And when I realized that was the approach I must take, I began to see how the problem could be resolved.

  Finally I walked back to Mawenzi’s hut. He was there, trying not to appear too hopeful or too surly. I told him to have one of his siblings go out into the fields and bring Samuel back to the hut. When he arrived, I had both of them sit on their low three-legged stools, while I stood across the hut, facing them.

  “You have asked for my help,” I said to Mawenzi. “And you,” I said to Samuel, “haven’t denied me the right to try to help.”

  “That’s true,” said Samuel.

  “I’m an historian,” I continued, “so it is to history that I look for guidance. Now, there is almost no Maasai history before the 18th century A.D., some five centuries ago—but that doesn’t mean that all history began then. The Chinese and Egyptians have histories that go back thousands of years, and more to the point, so do the Jews. And the Jews were circumcising their male children millennia before there was a Maasai tribe.”

  “Do they still?” asked Mawenzi.

  “They do,” I said. “But they don’t do it in streams or rivers, and they don’t do it with unsterilized instruments. In almost every case they do it in hospitals under conditions that guarantee no one will ever suffer or become ill from the process. Many Christians are also circumcised in hospitals.”

  I turned to Samuel. “If Mawenzi is circumcised in the hospital, will you have any objection?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Mawenzi,” I said, “if you are circumcised alone, not by a laiboni but by a doctor, will this satisfy you?”

  “Can’t the doctor come and circumcise all of us in the traditional way?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No doctor will agree to that, because it could cause infection and disease.”

  Mawenzi seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then he looked up. “I will agree to it, as long as it is known in the manyattas that I have been circumcised.”

  “It will be,” promised Samuel.

  The next morning Mawenzi became the first Maasai to be circumcised under sterile conditions by a medical doctor.

  And then something strange happened. Suddenly most of the young men asked to be circumcised in the same way, for they could see no reason for suffering pain if they didn’t have to. They were proud young men, and none would have volunteered to be the first, but once Mawenzi did it, they had no problem following suit.

  It was when some of the girls asked to be circumcised in the hospital that the doctors categorically refused, claiming that it served no medical purpose and was a cruel and unnatural surgery that was in fact against Nature’s intentions. The girls are still circumcised in the old way—but a few have refused, and I think next year even more will refuse. We can’t win every battle, but if we persist, eventually we can win the war.

  All that happened three months ago. There has yet to be a sign of infection, all because of one boy who insisted on honoring a tradition that his father opposed, and one historian who found the solution not among the Maasai but rather with a much older tribe.

  4

  NOON ON

  KILIMANJARO (2237 A.D.)

  I had just come back from a drive through the game park, which I always find relaxing. For centuries the Maasai had lived in harmony with the land, had shared that land with the creatures of the African wilderness, and then one day, seemingly overnight, there were no such creatures left. The great cats, the pachyderms, all the herbivores and carnivores, were gone. Poaching had reduced their numbers, of course, but it was habitat destruction that was the true cause of their extinction. Animals can come back from poaching, or from disease, or from drought—but once humanity has taken over their habitat, there is no place for them to come back to. So it was very pleasant, especially for an historian who knew the way we used to live, to be able to sit in my car by a water hole, watching the impal
as and zebras and elands and buffalo come down to drink.

  When I returned to my office, I found my friend Joshua ole Saibull, the lawyer, pacing restlessly back and forth in the foyer of the building.

  “Hello, David,” he said in English when he saw me. “Where the hell were you?”

  “At the game park,” I replied.

  “Again?” he said with an amused laugh. “Are you an historian or a naturalist?”

  “I’m just a person who finds it relaxing to watch wildlife,” I said. “I assume you’re here to see me?”

  “Why else would I come to a cramped little building filled with academics?”

  “Well, come into my office and tell me what I can do for you.”

  “For me, nothing,” he said as I walked down the corridor, stopped by my door, and uttered the combination that unlocked it. He followed me as I walked into the interior of the cluttered room. “For William Blumlein, everything.”

  “Who is William Blumlein?” I asked as he sat down on the same chair that Mawenzi had refused a year ago.

  “You’re spending too much of your time dwelling in the past,” said Joshua.

  “That’s my job.”

  “This is a man that historians will be studying and praising a century from now.”

  “Enlighten me,” I said, finally sitting down behind my desk.

  “William Blumlein is one of the leading sociologists on Earth,” said Joshua.

  “William Blumlein,” I repeated. “Is he white?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I assumed as much from his name,” I said. “Well, tell me about him.”

  “He wants to live here,” said Joshua. “He’s spent the past decade studying the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania, and now he wants to immigrate to Kilimanjaro and spend the rest of his life right here, researching us.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why do you study our history?” shot back Joshua. “He’s fascinated by the Maasai. The only difference is that you’re concerned with our past and he’s interested in our present and future.” He paused. “Trust me, David—this man can do important things for us.”

  “All right,” I said. “I have no reason to doubt you. What’s the problem?”

  “What did you think it is?” he said irritably. “Those hidebound fools on the Council of Elders don’t want him to come here.”

  “I thought they weren’t invoking the fifty percent rule until we were fully populated,” I said. “We can still handle another seven or eight thousand immigrants, possibly even a few more.”

  “They’re opposed to him because he has no Maasai blood at all.”

  “This doesn’t make sense,” I said, shaking my head. “I know for a fact that they accepted a family of Zulus last month, and they certainly had no Maasai blood. And two Mtabele immigrated here the month before that, and—”

  “Damn it, David!” snapped Joshua. “Open your eyes! It isn’t his blood. It’s his color!”

  “There is nothing in our charter that says whites can’t immigrate to Kilimanjaro,” I said.

  “There is nothing in our charter that says the Council of Elders has to behave like reasonable human beings and accept him either,” said Joshua. “But if they don’t, it won’t take long before there’s a backlash. Not only will no whites want to live here, but those who service our master computers, who help us clone our animals, who export the materials we need to expand our cities, will refuse to come here to a world of bigots. This could drive all white investment away.”

  “It’s possible,” I agreed.

  “I’ll be representing him before the Council,” said Joshua. “I’d like your help.”

  “Freely given,” I told him. “I don’t give a damn about white backlashes or future economic investment. I’m only concerned with the morality of the situation, and if we are to be a Utopia, then it’s clearly immoral to refuse this man the right to come here solely because of his color.”

  “Good. I knew I could count on you.”

  “Just be glad that I’m the only historian on Kilimanjaro,” I said. “Because any historian could make the argument that this is merely a case of payback. The whites discriminated against the blacks for centuries, even buying and selling us as slaves at one point.”

  “That was all hundreds of years ago,” he said impatiently.

  “My job is to study what happened hundreds of years ago,” I replied.

  “I’m more concerned with what will happen next week,” said Joshua. “This is a brilliant man, a decent man, who wants only to live out his remaining years here studying us and codifying what he learns for future generations—including future generations of Maasai. Consider that, David: most of your knowledge of our people, until the last two centuries, comes from European and Arab accounts. We had no written language, no interest in preserving our history. Now we not only have an official historian”—he nodded toward me—“but we have a chance to play permanent host to one of the leading sociologists on Earth. It would be folly to refuse to let him live here.”

  “You don’t have to convince me,” I said. “I have no problem with anyone living here, always excepting felons. It’s Robert ole Meeli and the Council that you’ve got to convince.”

  “I know, I know,” he said wearily. “My problem is that there’s no higher court I can appeal to, and I know that the Council is already set against allowing Blumlein to come here.”

  “Could he come as a visitor?” I asked.

  “A visitor?” he repeated, frowning.

  “A tourist.”

  “We don’t have a tourist industry,” said Joshua. “Where would he stay?”

  “There must be empty houses and apartments in any of the five cities,” I said, “or we’d already be closed to immigration. Or perhaps he’d like to live with the pastoralists in the manyattas. Surely it would take almost no effort to build a boma for him.”

  “We don’t have any rules for visitors,” said Joshua. “I’m sure that if a Maasai wished to visit members of his family here, the Council would have no problem allowing it, and that would be a precedent. But they’re hearing my argument for allowing William Blumlein to immigrate in just a few days, and I can’t arrange for such a ruling before he arrives.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said. “But you’re the lawyer. I don’t know what arguments I can bring to your case, because as I say almost all of history suggests that we’ve been badly used by the white race and owe it nothing.”

  “And yet you’re an historian and don’t believe that,” he said.

  “I believe we’ve been badly used,” I responded. “I don’t believe William Blumlein, or any person now alive on Earth or in the Eutopian colonies, is responsible for it.”

  “I hope you can make that case to the Council.”

  “I don’t argue before the Council,” I said. “You are the lawyer. I’m the historian. You will do the speaking.”

  “Thanks,” he said sarcastically.

  “I’ll do my best to help you prepare your case,” I told him. “That’s what you really want, and what I’ll provide.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “Blumlein is due to arrive on Kilimanjaro tomorrow. Perhaps you’d like to come to my house for dinner?”

  “I’ll have to think about it,” I said.

  “What’s to think about?” asked Joshua.

  “What if I don’t like him?” I responded.

  “You’ll do your best to help me anyway, not because you like or dislike him, but because we both know it’s the right thing to do,” he said with certainty. “I’ll expect you at nightfall.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  I spent the rest of the day and the next morning studying the history, not of Kilimanjaro, which is not yet four years old, but of Kirinyaga and the other Eutopian worlds. I paid special

  attention to their immigration policies, looking for historical if not legal precedents.

  William Blumlein had already ar
rived when I showed up at Joshua’s house, which seemed divided equally between ancient law books that he never read since they were all more easily accessed on his computer, and an endless series of scientific gadgets that he would buy on impulse and never touch again once he’d brought them home. Blumlein was a pudgy white-haired man in his fifties, with a thick mustache and a ready smile. His manner immediately put me at my ease, and I remained that way through the dinner, though it was apparent that his intellect was truly prodigious. Everything interested him, and he seemed to have acquired at least some minimal knowledge on almost every conceivable subject.

  I liked him, and I hated the thought of Kilimanjaro losing such a potentially worthwhile addition to our society. The problem was that I had no idea how to convince the Council to change their minds. They already knew his credentials and his reputation, and they still didn’t want to allow him to live on our world.

  I spent the next two days putting together a list of the most liberal immigration policies of the past five hundred years, then eliminated those where good intentions had not worked out. I had my computer transmit the information to Joshua, then I spent my free time showing Blumlein around the city and taking him out to the nearer manyattas while Joshua worked on his arguments.

  “Fascinating!” exclaimed Blumlein as we drove back to the city from the last of the manyattas. “They’re living the life they lived centuries ago, and feel no need to accommodate to the advances that are so apparent in the cities.”

  “We fought against the Westernization of our culture for centuries,” I pointed out. “Kilimanjaro is three and a half years old.”

  “Ah, but these are not Europeans and Arabs and Indians living in your cities, enemy races or races to be shunned. These are Maasai enjoying those advantages. I think it’s interesting that any Maasai choose to remain on the manyattas, without electricity or running water or modern medicine, especially when they can see their kinsman living comfortably in the cities.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find an explanation for it,” I said, “and then some future member of my profession will tell others of your conclusions.”